


Not the Waiting Type

by belovedbright



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 07:05:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedbright/pseuds/belovedbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy Carter had always known what kind of woman she was going to be.  She thought nothing could ever change that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not the Waiting Type

Peggy hadn't been the waiting type. She was not going to be the one fretting at home while wondering if her beau or husband came back from a war. Her first hazy memory was of her mother crying over a letter during the war that had been the “Great War” until the mess with Germany started. It had probably been the letter about her father being wounded in combat, but, she did not know for sure.

She couldn't have told you whether the war changed her father. She couldn't remember him before it. Only that he was quiet and often drank. But also that he taught her to shoot. Taught her to fight. He raised her like the boy he never got to have. Her mother had taught her that she never wanted to be the one left waiting. Her father gave her the skills to avoid it. But even with the skills, it hadn't been easy. It might have been impossible, except for an accident of fate.

Mother had never approved of her father's friend Julian. Julian Stark drank too much and swore more than any gentleman should, even for an American. Peggy suspected that was half of why her father liked him. He _laughed_ with Julian, which was rare enough. She never did get the whole story of how they'd met. Only that Julian had been one of the Americans involved in the war, and that he had invested heavily in a few European companies. All that said, even if Julian Stark was fairly wealthy, they didn't see him that often. The letters came now and then. Then he'd sweep in off the ship, turning up for the better part of a month, drinking and laughing, and making her mother crazy.

During one visit when Peggy was eight, Stark brought his son, Howard, with him. Howard was only a couple years older than she was. They had nothing to say to each other at first. Then she walked in on him pulling the back off the family radio.

“What are you doing?” she asked, tilting her head as she wondered whether she should tell someone what was going on.

“I'm bored. This model doesn't sound as good as mine. I want to see if I can fix it.”

Peggy considered this for a moment, weighing the possibility of getting in trouble against the possibility of learning something. “Can I help?” she said finally.

Howard looked at her, his brows knitted together in confusion. “But, you're a girl.”

That was the first time she hit Howard Stark. Their parents found them later, Howard sporting a black eye, and the radio mostly back together. It did work better when they were done.

They wrote back and forth for the next few years. Peggy even found herself a bit sweet on Howard. He was brilliant, and, after that first day, he'd never underestimated her again. They sent their letters in code, challenging each other to break this month's code. Peggy was always sure Howard did it faster, but, she'd get there sooner or later.

 ~*~

When Howard was sixteen, he wrote to her that he would be attending Oxford in the Autumn. To her surprise, she heard even less from him after he arrived.

“If Howard isn't interested in me, I'm not going to waste my time mooning over him,” she told her father one rainy evening in December, after two months of hearing nothing from Howard. “Besides, I would rather have him respect me than love me.”

“Peggy, you're growing up to be a hard woman,” her father laughed.

“There's nothing wrong with knowing what I want,” she answered, unable to escape the feeling that her father wasn't taking her seriously.

“Peggy, I have no doubt you know what you want now. You're smarter than most young men I've known, and more stubborn than several of them put together. Just don't let that stubbornness talk you out of things that will make you happy.”

She did go to Howard's commencement three years later, feeling awkward and far too young. There were two women among the sea of young men. Howard looked like an adult to her for the first time at least until he opened his mouth. Then he reminder her of his father – too smart for polite society.

When she told him _she_ would be attending Oxford in the Autumn, he said “You would have your pick of the men there, but they will be terrified of you.” Then Howard leaned in and kissed her. She was completely stunned for a moment, as she felt his lips on hers, and the soft scratch of his mustache.

A moment later, Peggy socked him in the stomach. Several new graduates and their families turned to stare, and Peggy felt her cheeks grow warm. “You, Howard Stark, are a rake,” she hissed at him not wanting to make any more of a scene.

He laughed, still bent over and wheezing. “That's my Peggy,” he finally gasped out.

Peggy found herself laughing then as well, and wondered just how many women had slapped Howard Stark.

Howard stayed in England through that summer and into the fall, even getting a position at Cavendish Laboratory. They didn't court, though they enjoyed each other's company. Peggy suspected that she was one of the few women he knew who he could even explain his ideas to a little bit. One of the few women who would hit him and be friends later. It made her too valuable to do something so pedestrian as _courting_ in Howard's world. Peggy relished having someone to talk to about the way men treated her at Oxford, which ranged from patronizing to outright rude.

 ~*~

Then the news came in late November. Julian Stark had lost a fortune in the stock market crash, and committed suicide in his office. Howard showed up at the boarding house where she was living. They sat on the front porch while Mrs. Richardson sent disapproving looks out the window.

“Peggy, I missed the funeral. I barely have the money to go home,” he said, swallowing hard. Peggy didn't know what Cavendish paid, but, one look at Howard told her how he spent it. His suit was new, and he had expensive tastes.

“I'm sorry Howard.”

He shook his head. “No. Sorry never fixed anything. I've been stuck in the academic world doing research. The hel-” he stopped, catching an even more disapproving look for Mrs. Richardson. “The heck with that. The businesses are still there to be managed. They didn't _all_ go under. My father was an idiot. I can do better. Ford? Ford's a hack. I can design better cars. You know, I could design better _guns_. Guns, Peggy! The military always pays!”

“Howard...” she began.

“No! Peggy, I am not going to be poor. This is a minor problem,” he jumped up and began to pace. “I will start some designs, pull in a couple of favors and fix this.” He looked at her briefly. “Thanks for the talk Peggy.” With that, he was gone again.

Peggy had gotten used to that. If she wasn't top of her class at Oxford, well, she did better than anyone expected of her. Anyone but her father and Howard. After three more years of _still_ fighting to be taken seriously, despite two degrees (mathematics and the possibly heretical but useful PPE, Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) and speaking three additional languages (German, French, and Latin ), she was glad to be done with her degree. Yet, finding someone willing to hire her proved difficult.

Finally, she found her way into the British Air Force as a nurse. It wasn't the career she wanted. It gave her independence though, and it was a step closer to something her father would be proud of. She also used every trick she had to learn more about the planes, and about piloting. It worked as long as she remembered to act a bit dumber than she was. A couple of earnest, young men caught hell for not only taking her up in a plane, but letting her fly. That didn't last long though. When she had exhausted anything useful from the pilots she knew, she moved on to the engineers. By 1936, she was part of the Special Air Reserve directly. Not that long after Britain declared war, Peggy was approached to interview for a transfer into the Strategic Scientific Reserve.

 ~*~

In hindsight, somehow she should have expected Howard to come walking back into her life during the war. It certainly didn't surprise her that when he sailed back in, it was in the middle of a Tuesday when she was buried in work. Nor did it surprise her that he greeted her with a grin and a kiss on the cheek. “Peggy! You look great. How's the new job?”

Peggy's stomach dropped, even as she felt a blind rage start to flood her. “You... you got me the job, didn't you?”

Howard's face fell, but he quickly recovered. “Peggy...” he started, grinning sheepishly, as if he could charm his way out of her wrath.

“Don't you 'Peggy' me. I didn't need your handout. If there wasn't a war on, I would quit on principle,” she said, feeling both furious and close to tears that only added to her frustration.

“Peggy,” Howard said sharply, “Don't be an idiot. I got you an interview. You did the rest. Christ, you're a crack shot with a degree in political theory, a mathematician with code breaking skills, and a hobbyist mechanic and pilot in _addition_ to having been a nurse and speaking both French and German. Why yes, don't look so shocked, I _have_ read your transcripts. Where else would they find someone with all of your skills?”

She frowned and punched him in the arm. “What are you doing here anyway?” she grumbled, though the bitterness was gone.

“Tired of me already? Blame the Japanese, sweetheart. We're in the war! And I'm here,” he said, slinging an arm around her shoulders, “because your _geniuses_ apparently are having a little trouble reconstructing German rockets.”

She batted his arm away affectionately. There was no catching up with Howard. Only the here and now, the new idea or the new dame. Then they fell into the work at that point.

 _I've finished waiting though,_ she thought. _Finally I have work where people take me seriously._

Then came an earnest, skinny kid from Brooklyn.

 ~*~

“Rogers is a joke,” Colonial Phillips told her in private. “He has no business being here.” Peggy half agreed with him. Rogers wasn't much to look at. He looked like a good breeze could knock him down. He wasn't a soldier.

On the other hand, he also didn't _think_ like a soldier. Or any man who'd always been able to use confidence and size to get his way. The flagpole incident showed that well enough.

“Rogers thinks differently than most soldiers, Sir,” she replied slowly. “I can't say that he's cut out for the Army as he is, but...”

Colonial Phillips cocked his head to fix Peggy with an incredulous look. “Agent Carter, do not _tell_ me Ernskine has talked you into this insanity.”

“No sir,” she'd said. “I'm not inclined to be persuaded by anyone.”

“Well that I'll grant is the god's honest truth,” Phillips said sitting down. “Fine. You're convinced. Ernskine is convinced. Well I'm _not_ convinced, but I'm willing to try to keep an open mind.”

She considered telling him she wasn't exactly convinced, just considering the possibility herself. Then the next morning was the grenade incident, and that settled that. Peggy had found herself holding her breath through Steve's transformation, waiting for something to go terribly wrong. _The work is sound,_ she told herself. _If anyone can make this work, it's these two mad geniuses_. But just when she'd sighed with relief, Hydra's spy struck and everything else went wrong.

 ~*~

Dropping Steve across enemy lines had been a terrible idea, but she had been pretty certain that he would try to get there with or without her help. After putting her faith in Steve and Howard, there was no turning back. What she hadn't really expected him was for him to become a celebrity hero. Maybe she should have known better, but part of her she still expected that shy, awkward young man.

Steve was filmed enough to not only be a star, but that anyone around him was caught in that spotlight with him. Even if only in the background, or in the form of a picture in his compass. And didn't Barnes understand that as well as Peggy?

“It isn't fair, Peggy,” Barnes confided to her one late night while the Captain was debriefing with Col. Phillips. “I used to be the one to get him out of trouble. Best friends all our lives, and now what am I?”

“Sgt. Barnes have you been drinking?” she asked in that voice usually reserved by mothers and nuns. Not that she needed to ask. Barnes smelled like bathtub gin.

“What _good_ am I next to that? The world wants superheroes. What good's a guy like me?” Barnes continued, ignoring her in favor of the cup in his hands.

“Sgt. James Barnes,” she said, taking the cup and dumping its foul contents. Then she grabbed Barnes by the collar and pulled him to his feet despite his protests. “You are a member of the United States Army. If Col. Phillips catches you drunk and morose he will _give you_ something to be morose about. You are literally incapable of calculating the number of potatoes in your future, if you do not shape up. This is not about your petty insecurities, _this is a war_. And no matter how strong or fast Steve Rogers is, he is but _one man_. He can bleed and die just like the rest of us.”

Peggy herself stumbled at that thought, even as she said it. Her voice caught, and Barnes stared at her as she caught another breath. “Captain Rogers is a leader. He needs men to follow him. Men who will _guard his back_. Instead of whining like a child, I'd suggest you focus on being one of those men.”

A sly grin came over Bucky's face. “Yes, Ma'am,” he said.

“Have I said something to amuse you?” Peggy said, stone faced but furious.

“No, Agent Carter,” he said his face smoothing into an appropriate semblance of respect. Peggy turned and walked away. She hadn't gotten more than six steps when she heard Barnes' quietly speak again with that same smile in his voice. “Just glad to know you feel the same way about him.”

Peggy didn't stop. Didn't turn at all. If her step bobbled slightly, well it was dark and she was wearing heels. _Barnes is an idiot whose been drinking himself blind. What could he possibly know? I am a_ _ **soldier**_ _, not some doe-eyed woman waiting for her lover. That is not who_ _ **I**_ _am,_ she told herself as she walked away.

She was so intent on doing so, she nearly walked into Steve.

“A... Agent Carter,” he said. “I...”

“Captain Rogers, you need to see to Sgt. Barnes. If Col. Phillips catches him as drunk as he is right now, he'll spend the rest of the war peeling potatoes.”

“Ah,” he'd said. He hesitated for a moment his blue eyes searching hers. His posture was loose and awkward, as if he'd forgotten he had this new body. _He's still that scrawny, earnest young man in there,_ she thought. Then she pushed by him without letting herself look back.

~*~ 

There had only been that one kiss, right at the end. No sweeping victory kiss in front of the cameras though. Only a brief, desperate kiss, and that last lie to each other as if force of will could alter physics. Then static and the cold, greedy ocean spanning miles.

She had gone with Howard on his first few missions to try to find the wreckage. Work had always been how Howard grieved. She knew that. But they fought bitterly when she told him that maybe it was time to stop looking. Two years later, he mailed back her wedding invitation torn in two. Where the war had softened her, it had hardened him. They didn't speak again until his own wedding to Maria. She flew there by herself, knowing that would make it easier. Howard never apologized, but that at least she'd never expected.

“I still miss him,” he'd said at a quiet moment at the reception as he drank yet another martini. “Don't you still miss him?”

She'd nodded, feeling that old clench in her chest even as she thought of her husband and sons at home. “Maria seems like a good woman, Howard,” she said instead. _Don't miss that chasing ghosts Howard. You've got a chance here._

 ~*~

A lifetime came and went with a move to the States, children and grandchildren. Howard's boy was an eccentric cousin for a while. Possibly more brilliant than his father, and more abrasive. And yet she wasn't surprised when he'd announced to the world that he was Iron Man. The Starks had never been able to surprise _her._

No, the surprise came when one of her granddaughters cried out, “Captain America is on the news!”

 _They've found him at last,_ Peggy thought. She walked as steadily as she was able to the living room. Only to find that the news was covering an alien invasion in New York City; and somehow at the middle of it all stood Steve goddamn Rogers directing people and shielding civilians.

“That's Captain America,” she said.

“That's what I _said_ Grandma,” her granddaughter said as they showed him throwing his shield.

_I would recognize Rogers' snap anywhere. If that's not Steve, I will eat my tea cozy._

“No, I am telling you that _is_ Captain Steven Rogers who was lost during the war,” she said, her voice sounding stronger and more crisply British than it had in years. “I don't know _how_ it is, but I would know him anywhere.”

Something seemed to shift inside her. She felt herself straighten a little taller just seeing him. _Funny how he could always do that to a person._ She realized she was holding her breath again as she listened. The news played the same clips over and over again, leaving her torn between the joy of seeing him, and the horror at the devastation in New York. _Oh Howard, how I wish you could have lived to see this._ She realized that the tears had come without her fully realizing, even as she smiled. She exhaled finally. _I suppose I've been waiting after all._


End file.
